Come on Rayihn/Baer.....seriously?


Tue Oct 23 10:56:18 2012 by 'An Immortal' at level 51 (169 hrs):
An Immortal added 2000 exp for: Nicely written Ode To Baer!

You gave out almost 4k immexp in under 170 hours and in total, your guy got 10k imm exp....more than any character has received total in almost 5 YEARS? (Check Dio's site and sort it by immexp)

That "ode to Baer" was more immexp than I got the entire life of Noviask - and he didn't *just* get all this gobs of immexp.

You have to have some sort of sanity around this - there's a reason the Empire was all Lotus followers and there's a reason this is getting out of hand.

As long as we're being open and honest: He deserved it and you didn't.

That guy singlehandedly redefined Baer's religion and the concept of good in general through a series of well written, creative essays.
What did your character create?

Edited:
Moreover, imm awards are rarely for a single event. Most weak RP players don't get this:

Angry Player: I sat there for 2 hours RPing and didn't get any xp! This other guy got xp for one line!

A single cool event looks like a good idea to reward someone for a whole list of consistently good things. I'm fairly certain this is the case.
Again, he deserved it and you didn't.

No text here

From Dios...

=Please understand this has nothing to do with you Tolgrumm=

"In a good way I mean that, I liked Tolgrumm - I thought we had a great time in the game.

I still think Baerinika needs to reign in the insanity a bit. 2k for a note, 4k immexp in 150 hours, and likely a majority of the heroes in the game are following her for the interaction and the rewards.

It needs to be even'd out."

So let me be clear...

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TOLGRUMM VERSUS NOVIASK :) Better?

That there is much Imm exp in the realm?

As Baerinika said she thinks the 200 the rest of the gods are giving is to little so she wants to lead by example.

If anything I would see this as a good thing. Baerinika is trying to change the current situation of low Imm exp given by others. So be happy next time the message might have sunk in with the other Imms or a new guideline has been given to give out more Imm exp and isn't that what we all want? More and more shinnies?

When imm exp first went in, and for a while after, I got random imm exp for roleplaying about the way I always do. Apparently the standard changed, and they don't do that anymore (or I've gotten worse at rp). You used to see "random snoop = roleplay" in pbf comments a lot more. I think an easier way to fix things is to make imm exp have less of an impact (more imm exp required for edges), but loosen up the distribution policy. I think that would both create an appearance of greater fairness and actually increase fairness. If the minimum amount of time an imm has to spend snooping to give you an RP award goes down, it's not primarily the high-profile/caballed/empowered people getting it. The uber people can still get larger awards (and there will still be whining - that can't be stopped) but I think it will give everybody more tangible feedback and incentives.

Edit: To the extent this is what Baer is doing, good. I have no insight into whether she is or isn't over-rewarding her peeps, in general.

I will snoop randomly and dole out xp if someone is actually being their character. Other's do it way more than me.

I guess I just got worse at RP or everyone else got better. I definitely used to get random RP a few times a character for just chatting in a group, and now I dont.

It was a really good ode. It rhymed and stuff. It's in my shrine if you want to go read it. As is all of Tolgrumm's tremendous hard work, not all of which he got immxp for.

Before edge points for immxp came in people would routinely hand out 5-10 k immxp. After that, we scaled way back on the amount we gave out. But around the time I gave Tolgrumm that two k I was seeing a lot of "added 100 xp for roleplaying in group!" and stuff. And I thought that was too little so I decided to make a conscious effort to try and give out somewhat larger amounts.


I get that you were frustrated about Noviask, but I hope you also realize there were a lot of things you could have done to make your experience better. Your prays in particular are something you could change. "Dark Knight, it's time we talked." What are you praying for? Batman? Vilhazarog? No idea. And you prayed this probably 100 times, each one expecting a different result. I checked your history a few times and did see Enlilth's comment but your pray wasn't like "You summoned me to come after I slayed Ekaerok and I have completed your task. I want the next one." or something that I could go slap/nudge Enlilth over. Side note, you never did kill Ekaerok. I have no idea what you were getting at here.

And having to read prays like: " And as always, I pray into darkness...with nothing from anyone heard." <- this has the opposite affect of what you're looking for.

Grrrr... I rolled Uial at the wrong time. I had TONS of songs about Thera and I don't remember getting much immexp. Not to get back into that character, with the vanity and all, but they were awesome too.

Alas, my deity was on maternity leave and the Herald imms were shaking their heads at the brat in their inn.

A question to immortals, what would you suggest to a non-religious char that wants some immexp love?

>A question to immortals, what would you suggest to a
>non-religious char that wants some immexp love?

Generally I think your best chances to be noticed are to be involved in a religion or prominent in your cabal. Therefore if not religious your best chance to get noticed is probably your cabal.

Other things are possible (I'm bound to notice a great enough roleplayer or big enough badass eventually, and the very rare really original and good role sometimes can do it) but in my experience those things seem to consistently draw the most notice regardless of what the makeup of the staff looks like at the time.

I think I got zero for something an imm liked. A treatise about pride.

Which was fine. Because a player should never be able to farm imm exp IMHO.

I know farming goes on because I know players that do it. Eg create an excuse to talk to lots of imms ic purely to get imm exp.

I think players can support and get behind that. People would be crazy to be against that sort of give back to the players mindset. I think the problem for some players right now people feel like to get any sort of cool reward though, they have to be a Baer or Rayihn follower to get it. Or Whiysdan if you fit into his niche maybe to a smaller degres. I think it is mostly people feeling like if they play anything but one of your followers they just wont get the same enriched characters life because either the other imms aren't as active, or are not known to show very much love in the reward department even if you do well. I know when I roll a character, especially an empowerment one but really any character, first thing I think is what imm will I follow. If that immortal hasn't been active in 6 months, well there is not a lot of incentive to go that route. Especially since once you follow a certain imm, active or not, other imms seem to completely steer clear of giving you love because you are the responsibility of another and possibly mostly dormant immortal. Having an active divine presence poking about and interfering with your character be it for good or bad is always an enriching experience in my humble opinion, and it seems to get that right now you have to bottle neck yourself into a few small choice religion slots.

I think Amaranthe had a good way to begin to solve this problem without burdening every individual immortal with her new nature based empowerment system. I really hope that you guys decide to extend that for goodies, evils, and possibly even lawful/chaotic. I like that any immortal can pick up the slack and interact for them if they feel like they are doing a good job. Then even the people that want to follow their made up religions have a way to get some interaction time without burdening any particular imm all the time, just whichever has the time at whichever moment. It leaves infinite possibilities for the players that feel like their particular role does not fit in line with any of the active immortal religions.

1) Dark Knight = name of the guildmaster in Hamsah, since he's unnamed
2) I didn't want to blab my details with them over prays, so I kept it light. I wasn't aware that I needed to define why I'm praying when trying to reach someone (figured they'd...you know, find out when answering)
3) I never did kill Ekaerok - so, does this mean I can't talk to my contact again? I got a 30 second conversation because Ekaerok drove me out of my guild...I wanted more.
4) Enlilth didn't answer for me for a month, despite notes and prayers and having Sacer trying to nudge him to come back. Sorry I "harassed", how about someone else actually answer or try something instead of ignore me the "100 times" I prayed.
5) And yeah, near the end, I was angry. I watch people get loving all over the place and being pretty much ignored my entire life because there's no evil Imms can only go on so long before you get mad.

Still, 2k imm exp for a note = way to high and it makes a lot of the rest of us just either give up in frustration or just join the dark side and start going to you with a proxy :P

At the end of the day, your real problem is that Tolgrumm was a character who was much more appealing to interact with than Noviask was. One might even say 4 times more appealing, if you really really want to put immxp numbers on it. :)

This is on you to address. This isn't something a proxy or lack thereof fixes. You watch Tolgrumm, and other people in his cabal/etc. seem excited to roleplay with him. You watch the people around Noviask and they're mostly talking about how much they hate him and wish he'd go away.

This is me talking as someone who, point of fact, gave cool stuff (even if it wasn't as much or as early as maybe you wanted or thought you deserved) to Noviask and I don't think ever gave anything to Tolgrumm. I'm about as impartial as you can find in this and if anything more charitable to you than most.

Yes, a little bit of this is alignment-based RP... but that doesn't account for all or even most of it. I don't want to bash on you but you are really missing the point and I don't know how to get it across without being really blunt: it falls to you to make a character that people, including but not limited to mortals, will want to interact with on purpose. It's not Enlilth or whoever's fault that they wanted to avoid you when, as far as I could tell, it seemed like most of your allies didn't want to either.

I've had some decent chars not that long ago that people liked... like Mubs, Lolo, etc.

Oh well, not worth arguing at this point. The simple fact was 2k for a note, at 160 hours, is silly. Don't care if it rhymed or talked about how amazing someone was.

If you can't agree with that, then we just won't agree.

He should have had 10K imm xp for kicking ass and his use of the squirrel all the time.

Not worth comparing Mubs.,,,

I think it's great. Someday maybe ill be the recipient.

Yeah sometimes I get bitter too when I feel my character is getting the recognition I think he deserves but I don't want to have that "if I'm not no one else should" attitude because I'm sure it'll come around. Plus it makes it fun for those who are getting.

If you're going to try to compare the IMM XP you've received with the IMM XP someone else received like it's some kind of e-peen yardstick, you're going to have a bad time.

Mostly because your conclusion has to end up being some mix of "things are never perfectly fair" (and how could they ever be), and "someone else might have played a character that's cooler than my character who I think is awesome." (and some people aren't big enough to absorb that.)

This is doubly true when you factor in that past a certain point the utility of extra immXP as a hero is marginal at best.

it would be nice if there was a concerted effort to reward immexp to more than just followers. especially in consideration of much fewer immortals

tolgrumm likely didn't get 2k immexp JUST for his ode but more as a culmination of many other small things and consistently being a great character (so i hear). that should be recognized.

if it really was 2k just for the ode? well yah, that's pretty dang high.

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3urxgf/

2000 for one note on a new character != Lifetime of most characters

If you counted the amount of immexp handed out to followers of Rayihyn/Baerinika, it's probably a big margin above anyone else and severely messes with the balance of the game. Does she do a good job interacting? Sure, but most immortals hand out immexp like it's a treasured prize....not "oh hey you sent a note, here's 2k" - and you can't point to some age death character and say "hey he deserved it!" At that point in the game he was like 165 hours and had 4k immexp. Hell, even Mek and other amazing RPers didn't get that kinda love that quickly.

The game is starting to dissolve into:

a) Play a goodie, get insane love
b) Play an evil follower who follows her, get insane love
c) Play a loner on the outskirts and get nothing

Noviask wasn't amazing - but I hung in there and I got less immexp in almost 300 hours than a single freaking note. And yeah, 8k immexp is a lot of edges - and he got more than just 8k more immexp above most characters. If you compare the last majority of PBFs, almost none of them have above 2500.

All I'm saying is that we need to balance out the giving or it's just going to natural become Baefields like the Empire was becoming.

>And
>yeah, 8k immexp is a lot of edges

Nope.

For this and several other reasons you should actually read what I posted earlier. :P

What is the cap on the whole immexp/edge points thing?

I knew there was a cap, but was never sure what it was. Eventually after I don't think I'll get more obs/explore points, I always end up sitting on a bunch of edge points hoping for some immexp.

There isn't a cap per se, but there are fairly sharply diminishing returns.

That vague stuff is just bleh to people who actually know.

You can show me all the code you want(which I wouldn't understand), but you mastered #### you didn't even use with the wood-elf and in a time span that is unbelievable.

IMM EXP matters, I'm waiting right now for some.

Oh, before you turn that in a different way.

I played a Black named Clissa. I had a pretty cool role I enjoyed where I was like the toymaker's daughter of Voralian City. I kept adding role entries about a new toy that he made of an established character/to be character? and kept getting reward updates.

Each time I got that exp, I got edge options.

Let's stop this entire #### about practicing doesn't matter, immexp doesn't matter, quest forms doesn't matter. It's just getting tiring.

>That vague stuff is just bleh to people who actually know.
>
>You can show me all the code you want(which I wouldn't
>understand), but you mastered #### you didn't even use with
>the wood-elf and in a time span that is unbelievable.

It'd been a while since I'd seen someone do a Rooqweaz style super practice nut character. Doing that while solo leveling a relatively high XP penalty neutral character seemed like masochistic fun to me.

And this is why I always have a sense of trepidation about claiming characters: because people overanalyze the weirdest ####ing ####.

>IMM EXP matters, I'm waiting right now for some.

It's always worth something, but it's worth less and less and less as you get more and more of it.

Edited to add: I'd be willing to bet that 2000 XP's worth wouldn't even buy Tolgrumm Deep Pockets at that point.

IMM XP matters a good bit, in fact it is the only way to get into a certain area explore...I'd be extremely happy if you removed this requirement (silly req anyways).

Also: I have to agree with the 100% skills matter argument. I've played enough characters to know that if you want to dominate the mid-ranks, you get yourself 100%'s if you truly want to compete.

If it doesn't matter, then why is there code preventing perfection of defenses prior to lvl 15?

And I'm sorry Nep, but pretty much every powerhouse I see come from yourself/twist/marcus/dwoggurd have 100%'s early..

Also, you guys spend a lot of time 'trying' to convince people skill %/imm xp rewards/etc don't matter, but your actual code/rules/behavior make it painfully obvious that it does matter.

I've always felt like 100% skills aren't a necessity to be competitive, at the most they're an extra edge, akin to having superior gear.

Sure, they're an advantage, but they're not a necessity to take someone down or win a PK. A lot more goes into a PK than 100% skills. Typically if you rank the correct way and pk a bit the skills you need will go up on their own fairly quickly.

I never have, and never intend, to spam any skills beyond hide/camo/creep.

I would feel the need to refute this if you were disputing anything I actually said. :P

You're right in that I'm not disputing anything you said in the post above, however I am definitely disputing something you've said before. Specifically that something being that "Having skills at 100% doesn't matter"

I don't understand why you guys keep beating that drum, and yet all powerhouse IMM characters give evidence to the opposite. I think I'd like an admission of

"having 100% in skills DOES matter"

That is all.

-Sarien

Again you're arguing against something I never have said.

What I have said is that if you're trying to figure out why you lost a fight, your skill levels are almost never the main reason for it. They aren't meaningless but at least another half dozen factors in any PK are much more important. So, not "skills don't matter" but "skills don't matter that much in most cases, and you will miss the important lessons by fixating on skills."

For one of your characters.

I don't think I've seen anyone else with it past 84%.

Attune goes up from observation XP, if it's practiced, though several other skills like dark vision will pre-empt it in getting those improves if applicable.

Without knowing the character in question... there was a while where I always practiced it with every character, just because seeing a skill at 1% offends my OCD. (Note: I don't actually have OCD, but you get the idea.) Eventually I got around to only practicing it if it would be useful for the character I was playing, for example if I cared about being able to tell where I could summon or gate.

There isn't (as far as I know) any kind of special bonus for a high attune skill other than, hey you fail at using attune less often.

Also, Hastur quit and Palan hasn't been playing much, so no mo' straight 100 players left :)

How about:
d) Play a character who doesn't follow a popular god and be cool enough to reap rewards anyway?

I suck at PK, barely know my way around the MUD, and am pretty much lost without rager powers.

Yet, I just con-died a tattooed leader with a custom long.

If you guys put the energy you put into feeling entitled and whining towards playing fun characters that make the game better for everyone, I think you'd see the results you're looking for.

Be the effing change you seek in the world.

I gave you that custom long. And you didn't follow me, be in my cabal, or interact with me in any way.

Thank you. Getting a custom long was one of the things on my CF bucket list, to be honest.

I'm going to take this opportunity to point out exactly why I got that reward (which I coveted and which was purely cosmetic.)

Fri Jan 4 17:20:20 2013 by 'Baerinika' at level 51 (326 hrs):
Everyone loves this character, he's long lived and solid. Custom long!

People, if you play solid, well liked characters, you'll get what you want!

It's not hard.

I dunno. I felt pretty slighted as Urgraj. I got one pat on the back for solo dropping two ragers and retrieving the key. But beyond that Urgraj did tons of really ballsy things. Like jumping three ragers solo semi-regularly and with enough potency to win at least half the time.

I was in Ray/Daev's cabal and even the pat on the back I got was just a title. Nothing over CB telling me a job well done or anything. No immexp at all for any of my defenses (solo defending from multiple ragers are a mid-40s something for a number of hours at a time when Gredoor typically solo'd the inners with defenders)

I'm starting to feel like simply being a cool badass isn't enough. My characters, historically, contribute to the game and are fun to be around.

Gurzgred
Garwern
Yarglen
Hralpelk
Ezgrint
Urgraj

If I can't get even a slight pat on the back for being a pk-competent and decently-rp'd character in NEXUS of all things, hell if I know what I need to do.

And it looks like Gurzgred and Garwern got some love.

But none of the others broke 200 hours.

If you haven't noticed by now, the longer a character lives, the more likely they are to be acknowledged.

I'm not sure that's going to change any time soon.

(Hralpelk I know was a special case, and frankly think he should have gotten a lot of love.)

Thanks,

I dunno though. Tolgrumm had 4000imm exp and a cabal edge well before 200 hours. I'm assuming he was also tattooed, but I won't compare that since tattoo comes into religion.

He evidently got tatted at 164 hours.

My point was really more that you can have characters who get noticed/rewarded without following Ray/Baer.

There are a few very active IMMs right now and their followers get a lot of love.

But the claims that only her followers are getting rewarded is not true.

I'm saying that anyone who plays a long-lived, well regarded character will get some loving.

I'll agree with that, but I think that at the same time a lot of cool characters are getting completely screwed simply because they don't follow her.

And while I agree with that to an extent, since it makes sense that a religion-oriented character is watched more, I also think that the leader of her cabal who is doing very well shouldn't have 1 immortal comment on his pbf and no imm_exp despite doing #### that should (in my opinion) get noticed and rewarded and doing those things a lot.

I'm fairly certain I could roll a character that contributes less to the atmosphere of the game, but instead goes down to the bathhouse and RPs super heavily and come out better rewarded then a character who is giving his all to his cabal, RPing with his enemies, and being a force in PK.

Ultimately, I don't think that following a religion should overshadow everything else so completely (I really do get that being a part of a religion makes you more noticeable, I just think it's getting overboard.)

That was my M.O, if you look at my characters, they all got something I think, none of them directly by following Ray/Baer.

Thendrell: My newbie priest, 3 virtues and a tat, Ysal took care of me and helped me a lot to get better as a player. 500+ hours
Kalisda: My first ever bard, first caballed char, in scion. Got a title, and some cabal edges. 400+ hours
Lasentia: Got 24 char for an RC and a quest spell from Thror. 500+ hours
Allysia: Followed no Imm, but you play for 900 hours, you'll get something. I got a cabal edge, and 23 charisma, since the edge did not help me much.
Salyeris: Quasi-religious with Neltouda, got a tattoo and a quest instrument. 900+ hours

I always thought it would be silly to expect to get anything before 150 hours outside of maybe role xp. The Xp should flow from playing the role out, and being immersed into Thera with your char. Tolgrumm did a wonderful job with that every single time I saw him IC.

What I don't get is people acting like this is simply not an option for them.

CF needs you almost as much as it needed Zulg.

Thanks. That means a lot man. I've always been a big fan of you and your characters, you should come back. I'm going to try to come back again before the Summer is over.

...in some shape or form. Not sure how much presence I'll have, hitting middle age sucks :)

Huge huge huge huge fan.

Every single one of your characters enriches the entire atmosphere of Thera.

You should consider attempting to Imm.

Because as you said, the guy makes incredible morts.
Not a guy on that list wasn't awesome in some way.

This is just MHO, but I agree, it's often "not enough" for the kinds of rewards we're talking about. In fact, I played a very strong cabal leader in Gurzgred's time that was rewarded less than Noviask :P Also, like you, I played a string of badass types that needed to win a RC to have a shot at rewards and anything over 1.5k exp (granted, my chars have 1/3 your chars' charm and charisma.)

For years, I never had a clue why my characters don't get that level of interaction. Until I immed, when I realized it is largely a matter of logistics.

It is not easy to ferret out the badasses and pay attention to them when there are a billion other things going on. It is also not easy trying to figure out the way to RP with them when the only RP hook you can see is that they are whirlwinds of destruction. IMMs only have a finite amount of time to survey characters that are playing, and the quiet badasses are competing with other characters whom are actively seeking IMMs and throwing out RP hooks like crazy. In fact, if you look at PBFs, most times the quiet badasses are rewarded, it's Daevryn - the rare guy who is a master of (1) multi-tasking and (2) processing multiple incoming streams of information, and (3) appreciates quiet badasses.

Daevryn gave awesome advice on two main ways for quiet badasses to compete with attention seekers: be religious and be a cabal leader.

One more that I'll add is to make your presence known, and your desire to RP, through prays. Something like send up a prayer for good fortune before you defend against four ragers, or send up a prayer for thanks after you cut down four ragers. That kind of thing, if done with charm, is going to help people find you and figure out the kind of interaction you're looking for much more easily.

Ironically, Noviask is one of the "best" players in terms of making sure IMMs know whatever he is doing, and that he really wants their attention - he obviously comes off as a bit needy in this thread, but you can see how even then, Noviask got attention from his many, many prays (free edge, custom title, etc.).

So really, there are my three solutions if you are charismatic like Gurzgred and not getting the IMM recognition that other characters get: be a standout in the cabal, be religious, and pray often in a non-annoying, here-is-the-RP-hook-to-get-to-me, way.

nt

I was never ever complaining about interaction in any of those posts. I was simply trying to be constructive, in giving my opinion of how we could enrich a wider rangers of players experiences than just followers of the 1 or 2 imms that you can count on for rewards consistently.


"it would be nice if there was a concerted effort to reward immexp to more than just followers. especially in consideration of much fewer immortals"

I think JUST putting a little extra effort into this alone will go miles and miles for the game. I remember when I started CF, random immortal interactions really really really beefed up the game for me. They are what set the pace to keep me here for for 15-20 years almost. I understand the staff is smaller and stretched more thin now, but this is an area of CF that I think has really been forgotten in recent times, and it was always one of the greatest and most fun parts of the mud imo.

That thing Amaranthe is doing is a GREAT idea. Giving assignments to people, giving them a place in a huge quest, getting people involved on all levels, even in just small roles if they prefer.

It's probably the best interaction centered questy thing thats been done in CF in years, I'm kicking myself in the ass that I did not get assigned a role to be a part in it. I really really hope that this goes well and everyone considers doing these more often.

nt

When I look at the list over on QHCF, they both say 0 now.

~